Earlier this week, the Westside High School’s pool heater broke. Although this may seem like a minor issue, the inconvenience has held up a lot of activities. Swimmers are no longer allowed to be in the water because it is too cold, and instructors are trying to find other activities for their students to do on land. Swimming Instructor Todd Johnson spoke about what this means for his classes and what he is trying to do instead. 

“Our heater is a pump that works with boilers and a pool pack to keep the water warm, and right now it is keeping just about 75 [degrees Fahrenheit], so it will ultimately come down to me deciding if the water is safe for students to be in,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that the timing of the heater breaking couldn’t have been better, because students would have been out of the water anyway due to construction to replace the scoreboard. He also predicted that the pump should be working in two weeks.

“In the meantime, what the students will do is up in the air,” Johnson said. “This week has been study hall, and next week if I can get [the] blue gym space, that would be ideal to help keep them in shape.”

For the swim and dive team, the timing was not as ideal. Junior Kaitlyn Munguia said that the broken pump will cause some difficulties for her team, but will have a minimal effect overall. 

“The heater breaking is more of an annoyance because we cannot get in the water, [so] it just places a huge block in our training,” Munguia said. “While the heater is broken, right now we are practicing in another pool, but for the season we will probably do dry-land training like lifting weights. It will probably stunt our performance this season, but I don’t think it will do anything extremely bad.